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Enfys posted:Is sencha supposed to be really grassy tasting or am I just doing something wrong? I really love green teas, but I have tried a sencha that I got a couple of times now, and it just tastes, looks and smells like stewed grass clippings each time. I've been steeping it at ~80C for 3 minutes. I tried cold brewing some earlier today as suggested a few posts up just to see what iced green tea would taste like, but it was still so grassy that I couldn't finish it. I tried again with some bancha that I have, and that is much better. Never really been into iced teas, but this was nice and didn't have that chemical sweetness I associate with them. Yeah, it's supposed to be grassy. You can try brewing it in the 'sweet' method, which is kind of like the cold method but I find makes it taste more floral. Steep the tea in a bit of cold water (maybe 1/4 of a cup) for about three minutes, then add hot (but not boiling) water, let steep for a half a minute or so, and drink. This tends to bring out a sweeter flavor from the tea than brewing at hotter temperatures. But then I like the scent and flavor of fresh cut grass. Sencha is steamed before it is cured, which imparts a grassy or seaweedy flavor to it. e. If you don't like sencha you will probably like Chinese green teas better since it is not steamed first. platedlizard fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Apr 14, 2013 |
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Apr 14, 2013 07:29
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Is it heresy to say that I love Celestial Seasoning's teabag tea and I would like some reccomendations of tea produced by them to diversify my palate? I literally just got into tea, so keep that in mind. I drank their Peach stuff and I loved it - but I want to try their herbal types since I can drink a peach anything.
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Apr 14, 2013 09:15
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Cromlech posted:Is it heresy to say that I love Celestial Seasoning's teabag tea and I would like some reccomendations of tea produced by them to diversify my palate? I literally just got into tea, so keep that in mind. I drank their Peach stuff and I loved it - but I want to try their herbal types since I can drink a peach anything. If you want to stick with bags, I would recommend Republic of Tea -- they even have a peach flavor (Ginger Peach). I don't know where you live, but you can get them at Whole Foods-y grocery stores around me, although I typically order online and get the full-leaf. I am a fairly recent tea drinker and, to be honest, I still prefer flavored teas. One of the few non-flavored teas I like is Adagio's gunpowder. I still find most green tea too grassy, but gunpowder is mild (and fun to watch unfurl). Keep expanding your taste buds and trying new things!
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Apr 14, 2013 15:44
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If you like flavored teas and are looking to get into loose leaf teas, see if you can find some jasmine phoenix pearls, it's wonderfully fragrant and light and sweet for a green tea. Most chinese grocery stores around here at least have them readily available.
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Apr 14, 2013 15:50
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Cromlech posted:Is it heresy to say that I love Celestial Seasoning's teabag tea and I would like some reccomendations of tea produced by them to diversify my palate? I literally just got into tea, so keep that in mind. I drank their Peach stuff and I loved it - but I want to try their herbal types since I can drink a peach anything. I don't know if it's really appropriate to call it heresy - maybe a few years ago I would do the snobby thing and say "ugh, get a load of this guy". However, that is in the past and a silly opinion, you should drink what you like! Celestial Seasonings and other more commonly known teas in the US are usually people's first impression of tea, anyway, and it speaks to their blending quality that people find appealing in the market, same thing as Lipton. I'll try to avoid being too :sperg:  y about the subject but since I see this a lot both in this thread and just in general I figure I should give some additional resources.Generally speaking, if you want to diversify, as you say, consider the following:
For other vendors, Adagio and DavidsTea has a great selection of flavored teas. I wouldn't recommend Teavana mostly due to the price point, however their blend quality is fine, you just pay a premium for it. If it sounds good, you can usually order a small sample. Most specialty tea vendors that have multiple locations make the bulk of their money on flavored tea blends, so they have a pretty wide variety. Consider that if you do want to get loose leaf you'll have to spend an additional, say, 5 to 10 bucks to get a filter or open fill teabags. I'm going to reuse an image from one of the earlier posts I made to demonstrate a 3 part thing - the permanent metal mesh filter is a useful way to brew tea, or for the same price the open fill teabags get you about 50 to 100. You can also use a tea/spice sock, which is just a clean cotton bag that you can reuse and rinse at your leisure (though it will discolor overtime if you have weird concerns about it, it doesn't affect flavor as long as you wash it well).   
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Apr 14, 2013 19:46
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Thanks a lot guys. I'm gonna try stuff from republic of tea and the more herbal celestial stuff. Always exciting getting into another hobby. I'm still scared of green tea though, haha. I figure I'll get into loose leaf if I get really hooked on it.
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Apr 14, 2013 21:34
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One thing you can do if you're wanting to work your tea into your girly fruitwater is that places like David's will have a lot of really fruit-heavy teas. This stuff is the peachiest oolong, and I think it's a great way to get your feet wet.
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Apr 14, 2013 21:48
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^^the key with green teas is to brew them at a lower temperature than black and herbal teas. Basically don't let the water boil. Some people measure the temperature but honestly I don't bother with that. Loose leaf green teas taste better than bagged, in my opinion, because the leaves don't like much abuse. There's also a huge variety of green teas. For example if you like flavored teas you might like scented teas too, like Jasmin. I'm sure there's a peach flavored green tea somewhere you might like. Japanese green teas like sencha are steamed before being cured so they have a grassy, seaweedy taste, vs. the Chinese or Vietnamese teas which are cured differently and often have a more floral taste. So you might want to experiment to find out which ones you like the best. And it's okay to simply decide that you don't like greens--there's plenty of good blacks and pu-ers and oolongs out there. It's also okay to decide that you prefer Celestial Seasonings--drink what you like and ignore the tea snobs who don't know what they've missing. I just ordered a one pound bag of my favorite tea ever, Lotus Ancien. It cost an arm and a leg, but I love the poo poo out of this tea.
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Apr 14, 2013 21:53
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hope and vaseline posted:If you like flavored teas and are looking to get into loose leaf teas, see if you can find some jasmine phoenix pearls, it's wonderfully fragrant and light and sweet for a green tea. Most chinese grocery stores around here at least have them readily available. I think Teavana carries it. It's definitely one of my favorite floral teas. It's absolutely excellent with clover honey.
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Apr 15, 2013 00:00
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platedlizard posted:I'm sure there's a peach flavored green tea somewhere you might like. There is! To be fair, I haven't had the green version of this, but I drink the back version all the time. My husband likes a lot of the Republic of Tea flavors so I tend to just order my full-leaf there when I'm ordering his bags. hope and vaseline posted:If you like flavored teas and are looking to get into loose leaf teas, see if you can find some jasmine phoenix pearls, it's wonderfully fragrant and light and sweet for a green tea. Most chinese grocery stores around here at least have them readily available. Thanks for the tip! I'm definitely going to pick this up when I see it. Sounds like a great flavor for spring/summer.
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Apr 15, 2013 00:41
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I used to love Celestial Seasonings way before I really got into tea. Then I got a couple of flavors that were heavy on the anise and got turned off. So when I heard that there was a tea shop not too far away, I got exited because I figured they'd have teas that don't taste like licorice. I still won't drink most CS teas. Someone brought some London Cuppa tea to work and I made a cup since the only other options were CS. That stuff is amazing! I wasn't expecting much but I just let it steep for a few minutes and it was great hot and just as good as it cooled. I've never seen it in a store but the person that brought it in got it from Marshalls and I've read that TJ Maxx has it as well. I've been stalking both stores. It's $2.99 for 40 bags in store and around $9 for 80 bags on Amazon. I'd have gotten it there if it wasn't an add-on item (or if I could find enough stuff to add on). I'm seriously embarrassed by how obsessed I am with this tea. It's just black tea. I've tried plain black teas at my tea shop and haven't liked any of them enough to have a pot. I was poking around on Amazon to find something to get up to $25 so I could get the London Cuppa and I think I might look at teas again. The good thing about buying teabags is that if I don't like them, I can bring them to work and they'll get used. (and also I can make tea when I'm feeling lazy)
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Apr 15, 2013 03:33
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If you're buying bagged tea, do yourself a favor and seek out the ones that come in nylon bags rather than paper. At least to me, all the paper ones impart a cardboardy taste on the tea to one extent or another, whereas the nylon ones don't. I think adagio uses nylon for most or all of the bagged teas they sell nowadays, for example.
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Apr 15, 2013 03:56
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Different tea bags can give a different taste to the tea, and there have been times where a company has changed the paper manufacturer that made their tea bags, and people thought the tea itself had changed. Then again, I was just reading an article yesterday in the Atlantic about possible PET leaching problems with silky teabags. I'm not sure how big of a potential concern this is to people, but might be worth a mention. A lot of paper bags go through chemical processes that involve bleaching them and other fun stuff, so it might be a toss up which is worse.
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Apr 15, 2013 13:45
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My pound of Lotus Ancien came in. It was loving expensive, but this is my favorite tea ever. I'll be lucky if I can make it last a couple months.  I wish you guys could smell it. It's similar to jasmine tea, except that it was scented with lotus blossoms. It smells and tastes like heaven.
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Apr 17, 2013 21:20
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A whole pound! I got a pound of dragon pearls a while ago (I think it was more than a year, and yes, I'm bad at following my own advice of not letting things sit around too long) and I've still got a bit of it hanging around in a tin I need to finish up. Luckily, it's held its flavor pretty well, probably because it's a yunnan.  It'd be a shame for that much tea to go loose any flavor from too much light exposure.
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Apr 18, 2013 21:47
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Is anyone interested in doing a tea swap of some kind with me? I went to NYC a few months back and hit up a grocery store in Chinatown and bought a couple random bags of tea. One of them, which I believe is this: http://www.uptontea.com/shopcart/it...0&categoryID=54, is something I just can't seem to get into. I think it's the licorice juice, it makes my mouth all tingly... Anyway, I've got a ton of this stuff and I'll feel bad if it just goes to waste. Anyone want to send me some tea if I send you some of this?
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Apr 18, 2013 22:12
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DurianGray posted:A whole pound! I got a pound of dragon pearls a while ago (I think it was more than a year, and yes, I'm bad at following my own advice of not letting things sit around too long) and I've still got a bit of it hanging around in a tin I need to finish up. Luckily, it's held its flavor pretty well, probably because it's a yunnan. Nah, that's not where I'm storing it, that's just a nano reef aquarium in the background that I use as a desklight/thing to obsess over. I should put the majority of it away and keep some of it in a canister, now that you mention it. If you like Jasmine pearls you'll probably love this. I find a lot of the Vietnamese teas to be really good in general.
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Apr 18, 2013 22:28
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In case anyone is interested, Teavana is running a 10% off orders of $50 or more until May 12. The online code is "SPRING" I know people generally aren't too big on them, but I thought I'd throw it out there just in case.
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Apr 22, 2013 14:47
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Anyone else make their own blends? I like getting high quality bases (usually ceylon) and mixing it with chopped vanilla beans or fresh citrus zest. Tons better than any commercial blends..
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Apr 26, 2013 05:45
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I just wanted to report that I tried green rooibos recently and I was surprised by how different it was from red rooibos, though I guess I shouldn't be, given how different green and black tea are. Anyway, it doesn't really have that sort of sickly/medicine-y flavor that red rooibos has (and that I love, even though the way I describe it isn't very appetizing), but more of a flavor that reminds me of the smell of very fresh sawdust from green wood (really delicious even though that probably sounds terrible if you've never cut down a tree before). I also tried green honeybush and it just tasted like weaker honeybush, and really wasn't very good. Anyhow, if you've tried red rooibos and didn't like it, it might be worth your while to give green rooibos a try if you're looking for tasty tisanes. It's pretty different from the red kind.
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Apr 27, 2013 01:13
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Vienna Circlejerk posted:I just wanted to report that I tried green rooibos recently and I was surprised by how different it was from red rooibos, though I guess I shouldn't be, given how different green and black tea are. Anyway, it doesn't really have that sort of sickly/medicine-y flavor that red rooibos has (and that I love, even though the way I describe it isn't very appetizing), but more of a flavor that reminds me of the smell of very fresh sawdust from green wood (really delicious even though that probably sounds terrible if you've never cut down a tree before). I also tried green honeybush and it just tasted like weaker honeybush, and really wasn't very good. I just got some citrus green rooibos from Adagia that is excellent. I prefer it iced. Not all, but several reds I've had do have that slight cherry cough medicine flavor, but I always thought it was due to artificial flavoring. Dr. Oz (quack) was on the Today show talking about how you should steep green tea for 20 minutes! I was hoping one of the anchors would've tried it and instantly spit it out. I got an Aeropress for my birthday. It makes great coffee. Has anyone tried to make tea with one?
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May 1, 2013 00:00
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sleepingbuddha posted:
Gross! I'm guessing he was claiming that a longer steep time lets out more nutrients or something stupid like that? I knew the guy was crazy after seeing him claim that too much apple juice might give you arsenic poisoning, but now I know he's just plain dumb, too. sleepingbuddha posted:
I have access to one, but it's been used for coffee so much that I'm sure If I put anything else in it, it would come out tasting like espresso. I don't see why you couldn't make tea using one, but it seems like it'd be more of a novelty thing if you already have access to other steeping/brewing methods.
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May 2, 2013 04:33
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In the interest of science, I just made a cup of 20 minute gunpowder. It is drinkable. There's not much nuance left to it but it's drinkable. I'm not sure what the point is, though, since I believe studies found the catechin content of brewed tea (which is what Dr. Oz is after) peaks around normal brewing times. You could have something much better-tasting with roughly equal antioxidant levels. And without waiting 20 minutes for it.
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May 3, 2013 00:14
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If you view drinking green tea as a tedious chore to get as many antioxidants into your body as quickly as possible while thinking of England before you return to knocking back colas, then I guess you could just buy some loving green tea extract and save yourself a lot of trouble. e: hypothetical "you", presumably Dr. Quack's audience, not any posters here
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May 3, 2013 04:46
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It's green tea harvest season! This year I'm limiting my sample selection to the following: Maiko Shincha Sencha Kinari Tsuen Ujibashi San no Ma Yutaka Midori (o-cha.com selected) Ippodo's Shincha Marukyuu Koyamaen Gold Depending on time/whether I feel like it, I might also add Sugimoto and Den's tea onto the list for sampling.
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May 7, 2013 04:02
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To be fair, steeping for long times is how the russians make tea, so it's not guaranteed to make a bad cup. But then again, I think they use black tea and they dilute it afterwards. I think the turks do it the same way too, plus they've got the cutest cups.
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May 8, 2013 01:42
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Just got a yixing teapot and wow this is a much, much better way to brew oolongs. It's so nice to be able to keep refilling your cup with tea, and the flavor changes slightly on each one! Y'all should recommend me your favorite oolongs, I have Ali Shan winter harvest and Dancong Aria right now. hope and vaseline fucked around with this message at 20:13 on May 8, 2013 |
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May 8, 2013 19:54
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Eeyo posted:To be fair, steeping for long times is how the russians make tea, so it's not guaranteed to make a bad cup. But then again, I think they use black tea and they dilute it afterwards. I think the turks do it the same way too, plus they've got the cutest cups. As far as I know, they dilute it and I think add sugar. I was in Poland for two weeks in 2011 with my dad, visiting his side of the family. He has a cousin that sort-of does this: he keeps a small tea kettle with a few bags of black tea in the kitchen, and whenever he wants tea, he pours a shot of the concentrated tea in a mug, pours in hot water, and adds a teaspoon of sugar.
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May 9, 2013 03:50
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I talked about samovars briefly in this post some time back in the thread.
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May 9, 2013 03:55
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Sorry if this has already been asked but regarding Celestial Teas: does anyone have a good recommendation for loose-leaf substitutes for their Sleepytime tea? I've been brewing a lot of loose leaf recently both for taste and cost effectiveness but so far I haven't found any good substitutes and the Internet seems to have mixed opinions. It's a part of my evening routine to make a cup of Sleepytime tea and the only thing that really helps me fall asleep but I really don't want to have to buy a box every 3 weeks or so for comparably worse tea. 
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May 14, 2013 15:19
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sleepytime tea posted:A soothing blend of chamomile, spearmint and lemongrass, Why not just blend your own? You can also look at alternative health stores online or places like Adagio sell the core components by themselves: http://www.adagio.com/herbal/chamomile.html http://www.adagio.com/herbal/spearmint.html http://www.adagio.com/herbal/lemon_grass.html Consider also looking at ayurvedic teas since a lot of those are herbal too!
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May 14, 2013 15:26
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Saint Seafoam posted:Sorry if this has already been asked but regarding Celestial Teas: does anyone have a good recommendation for loose-leaf substitutes for their Sleepytime tea? I've been brewing a lot of loose leaf recently both for taste and cost effectiveness but so far I haven't found any good substitutes and the Internet seems to have mixed opinions. It's a part of my evening routine to make a cup of Sleepytime tea and the only thing that really helps me fall asleep but I really don't want to have to buy a box every 3 weeks or so for comparably worse tea. Cha Cha is Adagio's equivalent to Sleepytime if you don't feel like blending. They also have a herbal tea called Foxtrot which is like Sleepytime Vanilla.
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May 14, 2013 22:16
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So I've got a sampler pack from Adagio for green teas on the way (though I can't get them to accept my Korean CC - had to Amazon it), and I was wondering, do I have to do anything special if I want to brew iced? I have a scale and temp-variable kettle (thanks, coffee thread!), but when I tried cold-brewing the cascara tea I got, it was pretty bad... I do like the ingenuiTEA thing you guys recommended, though I find it annoying to clean (and its size). Are the single cup metal brewer things any easier to clean? Any recommendations on those? Also, when I went to Japan, I had a thing where it was hot green tea poured over some rice, with a topping of some dried seaweed & fish... What's that called, if you goons have ever had that? Googling green tea + rice gives me genmaicha, which isn't the same thing.
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May 15, 2013 00:26
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Archer2338 posted:Also, when I went to Japan, I had a thing where it was hot green tea poured over some rice, with a topping of some dried seaweed & fish... What's that called, if you goons have ever had that? Googling green tea + rice gives me genmaicha, which isn't the same thing. Ochazuke. here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmR88M0mpuE I've had mostly success with cold-brewing green tea, but it depends on what constitutes as "Pretty bad" to you. Was it too bitter? Wrong flavors? No flavors at all? For normal single-serve brewing, if you don't want to use a teapot, I'd say you can use a fine filter such as these: http://www.amazon.com/Finum-Goldton-Filters-Blue-Green/dp/B001D07MCU You can also use a single serve teapot (of which there are many), the one I have has a gravity mechanism similar to the Ingenuitea, but it has its own actual pot: http://onetouchteapot.myshopify.com
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May 15, 2013 01:19
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aldantefax posted:Why not just blend your own?...Consider also looking at ayurvedic teas since a lot of those are herbal too! mikemil828 posted:Cha Cha is Adagio's equivalent to Sleepytime if you don't feel like blending. Both of these are really great suggestions! I'm probably going to give both a try and see which one I prefer- at the very least I drink a lot of tea so even if I have some extra teas laying around I'm sure I'll get around to them eventually. Thanks!
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May 15, 2013 06:19
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aldantefax posted:Ochazuke. here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmR88M0mpuE Awesome. What I didn't like about the Cascara was the flavor itself, as I didn't like it hot either. My Japanese green tea sampler from Adagio came in; it has Sencha, kukicha, hojicha, and genmaicha. Opened the Sencha and man, I like it. I feel like I put too much leaves per water in my ingenuiTEA thing. Since I don't own any measuring spoons, but do have a scale: what's the tea:water ratio I should be aiming for? Does it differ with each tea? "A heaping teaspoon" is way too vague for me, and I do want to try to get a perfect cup (coffee-sperg habits). Also, I know I can infuse the tea several times, but my concern is that after brewing it once, there is no way to preheat the infuser, and unless I brew immediately afterwards, it's going to cool down in the meantime. How do I prevent this? Just get one of those metal baskets?
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May 17, 2013 03:50
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I don't really see the harm in letting the leaves cool down in between infusions. Reuse that sencha! The second infusion is usually the best, just make sure you lower the time to around 30 seconds. I usually just eyeball how much tea I use. Densely packed teas and pearls are easier to measure, a full tsp, and looser teas like chinese greens and whites you want to use more of. hope and vaseline fucked around with this message at 03:59 on May 17, 2013 |
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May 17, 2013 03:56
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For sencha, try about a gram of tea per 2oz of water and adjust up or down from there depending on whether you find it too strong or too weak. This is really a matter of preference, so just experiment and figure out what you like most. Unless your brewing vessel really absorbs a lot of heat, I don't find preheating to be all that important. You can pour in water a bit hotter and aim for the sides of the brewing vessel if you want. When I'm at work and using a heavy 10oz mug I preheat the hell out of it, when I'm at home and brewing in thin, light gaiwans and houhins I usually don't bother.
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May 17, 2013 04:03
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Awesome, thanks for the quick replies! I did go up to a third reinfusion, except I didn't really have any idea how to time the subsequent ones so my 2nd one turned out too bitter, my 3rd one too watery. When you say 30 seconds, do you mean total brewing time? I thought I'd need to increase time since I thought the tea would be getting "weaker" each time, but does this have to do with the expanded leaves?
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May 17, 2013 04:32
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For some reason senchas benefit from a shorter second infusion. I usually do 1:30, 30s, 1m, 1:30. You could also experiment with using hotter water as you go on.
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May 17, 2013 04:34
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